“It is the plan I had arranged if I had gone alone,” was the reply; “and I think if Doctor Shorter will furnish us with the necessary medicines—”
“He requires change more than medicines,” said the doctor. “Care against exertion, and—there, your own common sense will tell you what to do.”
“Doctor! doctor! doctor!” sobbed Mrs Dunn; “I didn’t think it of you. What’s to become of me?”
“You, madam?” replied the doctor. “You can read and write letters to our young friend here, and thank Heaven that he has friends who will take him in charge and relieve him from the risk of another winter in our terrible climate.”
“Hear, hear!” and “No, no!” cried the lawyer. “Doctor Shorter, ours is not a bad climate, and I will not stand here and listen to a word against it. Look at me, sir! Thirty years in Sergeant’s Inn—fog, rain, snow, and no sunshine; and look at me, sir—look at me!”
“My dear sir,” said the doctor smiling, “you know the old saying about one man’s meat being another man’s poison? Suppose I modify my remark, and say terrible climate for our young friend. You are decided, then, to take him?”
“Certainly,” said the professor.
“To Turkey?”
“Turkey in Asia, sir, where I propose to examine the wonderful ruins of the ancient Greek and Roman cities.”
“And hunt up treasures of all kinds, eh?” said the doctor smiling.